


A Friend From The Other Side

by pinesboi



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Cr2 spoilers, Heavy flirting, M/M, Mild Gore, Oh also, basically this is Vax and Molly commenting on m9 and telling them how dumb they are, gross creative liberty taken with the Raven Queen, molly kicks it in the afterlife w his bi buddy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 08:16:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15882150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinesboi/pseuds/pinesboi
Summary: The day Mollymauk Tealeaf died, he woke up in a daze. He couldn’t quite remember what had happened just a few hours previous. He remembered Keg, and he remembered the wagons. Trying to grasp the memories was like trying to grab cotton floating on a breeze, constantly out of his grasp each time he lurched out to grab them.





	A Friend From The Other Side

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in two hours at 2am pls don’t come for me if this is bad

The day Mollymauk Tealeaf died, he woke up in a daze. He couldn’t quite remember what had happened just a few hours previous. He remembered Keg, and he remembered the wagons. Trying to grasp the memories was like trying to grab cotton floating on a breeze, constantly out of his grasp each time he lurched out to grab them. He shook his head. There was a pain in his chest, like he’d broken a few ribs.

It was the pain that finally brought it all back.

He looked down at himself, and there in the center of his chest was a large, gaping wound. It was visible through the tear in his shirt. It wasn’t bleeding, but it was just...there. Like he’d gotten a tattoo and the ache from the needle was in his flesh. 

Lorenzo’s boot. The glaive. People yelling. He glanced around frantically, hoping to catch sight of some kind of familiar ground. Instead, he was met with nothing. Just an inky blackness that surrounded on all sides. It was stiflingly warm, uncomfortable but not enough to make him sweat.

Mollymauk had died before. Reasonably, he would be able to come back again. He had things still to do. People trapped in dungeons to save. And so, so much still to experience. He’d never been to the Menagerie Coast. He’d never had those cinnamon pastries that Jester always boasted about. He’d never cracked the backstories of his group of motley friends. 

The issue at hand, though, was he had no idea how to come back. He had no memories of how it had happened before. A fearful voice in his head began to nag at him. If he came back, would he even be Molly? Would he be Lucien, or Nonagon again? Or some other, clean slate of a person?

Molly twisted in the inky space around him, moving weightlessly. Everywhere he looked just... black. It took most of his willpower to not start hyperventilating. 

“Hello?” He yelled out. “Anyone... out there? Or around?”

His voice sounded muffled to his own ears, like his head was stuck in a box. He waited. Silence was his only response.

“Excuse me,” Molly forced down the panic in his voice. “There someone in need of a resurrection. If whatever deity is here would mind having a word.”

There was silence again. He began to truly worry. If this was what afterlife was, he’d much rather have nothing. Rather that than an eternity with his own thoughts. His breathing got ragged and hard, and just as he was beginning to feel angry tears welling up in his eyes, there was a light. 

A light and a sound like fabric ripping. 

He was hesitant to approach it, but the light didn’t give him much choice. After only a moment, the light sucked him out. It was an odd feeling, emerging out the other side. Like being born, if he had to guess what emerging from the womb was like. 

It took his eyes a moment to adjust, but when he did he found himself heaving a sigh of relief. The air was cool and clean on his skin, an open and cloudless night sky above. He seemed to be in some kind of garden, home to an amalgamation of various flowers. He spotted some a distance away that seemed to glow. 

His mind momentarily drifted to a certain barbarian woman. He thought about how much she’d have liked to add the glowing flowers to her collection. 

He shook the thought away. 

“You called?” 

Molly snapped his head behind him. He was now very aware that he was sitting on a patch of grass. The voice had come from a figure, slim and disguised by a black cloak. A hand wielding a knife removed the hood, and he was pleasantly surprised.

The man was a half-elf, fair in the face. Long black hair was half tied up behind his head, and a somewhat bemused smirk pointing the side of his mouth.

Molly eyed the man and nodded. “Mind helping a lady up?”

The man seemed confused for a second, but soon shrugged it off and offered him a hand up. Once he was on his feet he dusted himself off gave the man a nod of thanks.

“Well, I suppose you are the fearsome deity I have to bargain with?” He grins ferociously. “Not bad. I suppose you don’t accept companionship as payment?”

The man raised an eyebrow, not unkindly, and laughed. “No, I am not. Though, the offer is appreciated.” He eyed Molly up and down, lingering on the hole in his chest. “I am a... servant of the Raven Queen. This is her domain.”

“Ah. Well, now, if you could be a good boy and point me in her direction, I am in quite a hurry. People to save and all that.”

“Sorry, I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” The man truly looked sympathetic. Molly hated it a little bit. “The Raven Queen is busy, dealing with death and all that. She sent me to speak with you.”

Molly pouted. He felt like a petulant child, but he had never been one to care much about his appearance. Plus, he was dead, he was probably allowed to be petulant. 

“I suppose that will do. What do I call you? ‘Attractive cloaked figure’?”

The man laughed again. “You could call me that. Though I prefer my name.” He extends a hand for Molly to shake. “Vax’ildan. Just Vax, really.”

Molly took his hand and laid a (probably over gratuitous) kiss on the back of it.  
“Mollymauk Tealeaf. A pleasure.”

Vax rose an eyebrow again at the kiss. If it bothered him, he didn’t mention it. “I know. Your name, that is. The Raven Queen has been watching you for some time. So have I. If she hadn’t taken an interest in you, you wouldn’t have emerged from the void flower until your soul had let go of the living plane.”

“Uh. What?” Molly’s mind felt numb, Vax’s words rattling around in his brain. 

Vax grabbed his shoulders and turned him to the right slightly, and that’s when he saw it. 

What he had assumed was a tree was... well, it was still a tree, but it was fucking huge. The trunk was about as wide as a lake he’d mistaken for an ocean while touring with the circus a while west of Rexxentrum. It extended upwards as far as he could see and beyond, disappearing into the night. Littering the branches and the trunk were deep purple pods. The best word he could use to describe them was cocoon. Thousands, millions, probably, littering every free space of the tree.

“I was... in one of those?”

Vax nodded. “All who are not yet ready to move on stay in those pods. From there they watch the world and the people they left behind. They watch until they are ready to let go.”

“Mine didn’t have that. Must’ve been broken.”

“Maybe if you had waited more that five hours, it would’ve worked”

Molly’s tail flicked out behind him. “Hm.” He took a deep breath in and let it out in a sigh.”So. Moving on from the strange tree cocoons of dead people, and on to my resurrection. What do I need to do?”

For the first time since he’d met him, Vax’s face twisted into a frown. “It’s a little more complicated than a simple conversation, my friend. Come with me.”

His hand came to rest on his back, leading Molly away from the tree. He was pushed out of the main garden area, and into a small cobblestone patio. A quiet little fountain gurgled in the middle, dozens of little gold coins shining from the bottom. A smooth stone wall blocked his view of any more of the garden. Several runes were carved around the edges, and he found himself almost calling for Caleb to come asses them. The thought made his chest ache again, but a different kind. A kind he realized would probably never go away now.

The smell of the perfume from the flowers carried on a night breeze and tousled his hair, the jewelry in his horns clinking, along with something that reminded him terribly of bacon. A small iron table and two tall chairs were lit by lanterns that were suspended midair, despite most everything being lit by the moon in the sky, full and much larger than it should be. Vax led him to sit on one side, taking the other after he’d made himself comfortable.

They both sat in silence for a moment. Molly waited not-so-patiently for Vax to begin to talk. He caught his eye and smiled sadly.

“I’m afraid you cannot be revived this time, Mollymauk.”

The words deflated a hope in his chest that he hadn’t even realized had been keeping back the reality of the situation.

Vax continued, clearly trying to barrel through his prepared speech.

“That body has cheated the Raven Queen once before. She won’t have it cheat her again.” He cleared his throat. “But, she also has taken an interest in that group you were traveling with- the... the Mighty Nine?” He scratched the back of his neck. “I could have sworn there were only six...”

He looked up at Molly and shook his head. “Anyway, she wants you to stick around. Watch your friends. Their fate has some... interesting turns ahead, and she wants you here for them.”

“So... what? I sit here, for an indeterminate amount of time and watch my friends suffer while you and the Crow Princess drink tea and watch for entertainment? I’d rather die.” He coughed. “Again.”

The addition made Vax laugh, but half of it was pity. 

“I promise you, it’s not as bad as it seems. You will be able to offer them some aide, at times. And there are things here we can show you.” His voice dropped down, a serious tone overtaking his usually jovial lilt. “The man who once held that body- Lucien- he’s here. Barely, but he’s here. You could talk to him, about your past-“

“Not interested.”

Vax looked at him, just staring into his eyes. Molly couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Probably because there were about ten other things on his mind at the moment.

Molly sighed. “Fine. Look, I’ll stay. It’s better then that damn pod.” He paused, remembering why he died in the first place. Lorenzo. “And there are people I need to make sure don’t join me here any time soon.”

Vax nodded. “I understand. First, though,” he gestured his hand, and a silver platter of bacon was placed on the table. It smelled positively heavenly to him. He wondered about the specifics of being hungry when he was already dead and attempting to eat when his esophagus was severed in the middle of his chest, but he shrugged it off and took a piece anyway. 

“Any chance you can summon some booze as well?”

Vax smiled, keen and happy. “Always.”

Another wave of his hand, and two large tankards appear before them. As soon as Molly touched his, however, it morphed into an elegant wine glass, filled with a wonderful smelling fruity drink that promised a higher alcohol content than gold he had on his person.

He smiled back at Vax. He supposed being dead wasn’t too terribly bad.

**Author's Note:**

> Well should I made this a series of Molly keeping up w the Wacky Hijinks of the M9?
> 
> Let me know.
> 
> My tumblr: http://pinesboi.tumblr.com


End file.
